It was a dark, stormy,
moonless night. The man stepped out of the Church which stood at the end of the
forest path. The Church stood behind the man …….dark and silent; it was an old
Franciscan Church built in 1320 and deserted by the end of World War One. The man walked
into the graveyard, his hands in his jean pockets. The rain fell across the full
forest landscape drenching the ground as well as the man’s cycle which was
standing within the graveyard. The man’s name was Jerome. He had never seen a night
like this before. As he passed a few lonely tombstones he neared his bike parked to an
old mossy gate. He was drenched from head to toe; the night air was nippy and
darkness was working up his mind. He got upon his cycle and rode out of the
graveyard. But, the moment he started to ride across the forest path…….he had that unearthly
feeling that he was being followed. His trainers
pumped the cycle to a fast
pace. His breathing got heavier…..his body felt tight and his wet clothes
were chilling his bones. Suddenly, he stopped and looked up……there stood a pale
looking creature upon the old oak tree.
“Who is that?” gasped Jerome,
terrified….but there was no answer and all of a sudden the pale creature vanished
and……..his ears caught the ascending sound
of a woman’s wail. He gripped his bike…..a
chilling silence followed another ascending wail. Jerome picked up courage and
got onto his bike and started to race himself out of the forest. The wail grew wilder
and the sound started to ring in his ears like a gong. As he rode out of the mossy
forest, he heaved a sigh of relief. He looked around, there up
ahead stood his mother’s bike
and his mother looking on at him.
Jerome leapt for joy as he
pedalled towards his mother. “Where were you?” inquired his chubby mother
calmly. ‘Never mind’ retorted Jerome. ‘Let’s just get out of here’. And they
both rode down the highway. His mother
was an overweight middle aged woman, but could ride a cycle like a
professional. Jerome was still ill at ease; the sound of the woman’s wail was
still ringing in his ears. The rain suddenly ceased. Jerome’s mother sighed
with relief, “At last that is over.” “Yeah that’s for sure”, piped in Jerome
gleefully as if to say he had a new lease of life-when suddenly his ‘pager’ beeped. He brought his bike to a halt to take a look
at the message------he was horrified: “WHERE ARE YOU SON?” And the message was from his Mother.
‘Then…..then who is ‘this’ with me’, thought the pale looking Jerome, clutching his
bike handle. But his ‘mother’ sped on and suddenly a wail leapt from her…….a morbid
stench of the dead filled the atmosphere. Jerome’s nostrils were filled with the horrible
stench and a tear rolled down the scared man’s cheek. ‘No-no’, he moaned in pain,
getting on his bike and speeding off in the opposite direction back to the forest.
His muscles were tense…..his whole chest heaved heavily. But the wail did not
cease, as he drove faster the wail became shriller. Jerome pedalled himself back to the
forest where he rode all the way to the church and dropping his bike ducked into the
mossy structure.
The wailing had stopped, and
Jerome was kneeling near the statue of the Holy Mother. His breathing was heavier and
his manly structure was reduced to a trembling wreck. His pale blue eyes darted around
the full church from the altar to the dusty chairs….no one, he was safe …he was okay. But the incident was lingering and the empty
church was playing tricks with his mind. The scuttle of a lizard or the rustle of
dried up leaves within the old abandoned church was making
him apprehensive. ‘Who’s that?’ he would suddenly yell clutching his throbbing
heart. ‘What was that there’, he would cry
aloud thus bringing a little life into
the old structure. His lips were
trembling and the dampness was making him insane. He was reduced to a mere animal in a trap,
and all he wanted was to get out of this mess, but
what could he do? If he didn't stay here
well then – neither could he go back on the highway,
where that – that ‘thing’ was. Jerome gripped his wet shirt and moaned in pain.
Suddenly….there was another sound… clanking
sound. Jerome alerted himself like a mole rat, he burst out of the
church and moved closer to his bike. The
clanking sound was getting louder, and so was
the sound of his breathing. The rain started to fall again, sending chills up
and down his spine. Cupping his ears he strained
to hear the sound against the pouring rain. He heard it….it was coming from the
graveyard. He choked down the lump in
his throat and motioned himself towards the graveyard. Jerome was freezing but the weather was not
showing any mercy. His trainers trotted along the marble slab as he moved
ahead. Tears were rolling down his heavy
laden eyes profusely – tears of desolate terror. The agony that he felt at that moment was
unmentionable…he was for a moment nothing more than a bundle of nerves. He got
closer – closer to the sound…closer to the clanking noise… closer to his worst
nightmare. When he turned the corner…
Jerome was freaked right out of his wits.
In front of him stood the
person who he thought was his mother… with an unholy expression on her white
face…clanking bones of a skeleton at a rhythmic pace. Her eyes were bloodshot and her arms and limbs
were covered with the mud of the forest.
Her smile was fiendish as well as her body language. A maleficent force was surrounding her and
that evil power was being felt by Jerome.
He was nearly going to faint from fright, when a wail from the creature
in front of him stirred him up. Her
voice was ghastly and her behaviour was demonic. Jerome knew his end was near.
The rain patted down the
earth and Jerome fell down upon the murky ground. His body was soaked and his face was
yellow due to the loss of blood. He
clutched the mud of the ground as he begged for
mercy, but other than an agonizing howl…he got nothing. Jerome stopped trembling at
last, his heavy breathing ceased and his eyelids closed in exhaustion. Before he fainted, Jerome only heard one last
sound…the sound of his bike…moving away.
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